Interior Weight Removal: Sound Deadening

From S-Chassis.com Wiki

If you are looking to reduce the weight of your car, and thereby increase the HP to lbs ratio then there is a relatively simple place to start that won't make your ride look haggard. Get rid of the sound deadening tar! Yeah, its heavy, and its invisible because it is hidden under or behind other parts of the interior so why not?

Lets start in the trunk, in my car there is about 50-60lbs worth here, and from what I have heard there is about half that in a 240sx or a little less but every chunk of weight counts. Start by pulling up your carpet layer that covers the spare tire. Here is where all that tainted tar is. Now there are two popular ways to attack this.

1)Heat gun 2)Dry Ice

I only have experience with the first so I will cover it in detail. Cheapest way to do this method is with a hair dryer and set it as hot as it will go and use it directly on the tar to heat it up and loosen the adhesives hold on the metal under it. Next use a flat, strong instrument to get under it and peel it up, I used a flathead screwdriver but you can really use anything from a chisel to a knife. Point is for it to be flat and allow you to get under the loose tar and peel it up.

To start this process I began where the spare wheel is kept in my car and you could clearly see where the layer of tar ended. I heated it up for a few seconds, and then jammed my screwdriver under and yanked it up and went from there. It is fairly easy once you get started. For other sections of the car other than the trunk use the same strategy but they may be harder to get to and the tar may actually be useful for insulation against heat in some cases. My brother had the problem in his girlfriends stripped car that his feet would heat up really bad when driving because of the lack of insulation. I stopped after the trunk and back seat in my BMW because that was almost 70 lbs and it would be pretty hard to get my car looking back normal if I just started ripping up the carpet to get to the stuff.

The only other topic to cover is the Dry Ice which I have no experience of but from what I understand you just apply it to the tar and it will cause it to shrink and crack making it easier to get up with. Once it is applied I am pretty sure you follow the same basic directions.

Once you are done with this step you can throw back in your carpet layer in your trunk and no one is the wiser, or just leave it stripped, whatever rocks your boat!

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